As With Anything, There Are Always Exceptions
by Kali Cephirot
Summary: As a general rule of thumb, Death didn't like frequenting those He had come to call Long-Lived.


**As With Anything, There Are Always Exceptions.**

As a general rule of thumb, Death didn't like frequenting those He had come to call Long-Lived*. It felt, a little, what He supposed must be feeling salt in a wound. Many of these Long-Lived had become so when He had been ready to pick them up, only to find out that nope, can't do: you have to wait until the curse is broken, until all the pieces of a magical object are found, or until there is only one standing.

And while He was very patient, He was also very proud of his work, and since Nicolas Flamel had ended up finding how to make that Philosopher's Stone of his, everything had become a little more complicated for Him. It wasn't like Gods, Goddesses and the like, no: those were, all in all, relatively easy. He just had to wait until humanity forgot about them and boom! They lost their immortality. Zeus had wept like a baby when Death had gone to pick him up, even though He had done a complete show with a carriage and black skies, since Hades** had asked Him to have some consideration with his brother.

It wasn't the same case as those that He had, deathilly, granted an extension, or those who had won, fair and square, an extra time. Most of these Long-Lived were the ones He had come to collect himself and then... nothing. They were like bleeps on the system. Some of them had been glad at first. Overjoyed. It had made the experience rather bitter, really. They could have said: 'it's lovely to see you, I'm sorry you had to come here all the way here for nothing' but no. They cheered, they pumped their fists in the air, pretty much started dancing. It was enough that He had considered that when they actually grew tired of life, He would just leave them there and wait. See if they were still cheering then.

And the rest, ah. Those made him feel guilty. When they look at him, surprised and dreading to find out that yes, they are still alive. Many of them ended up crying, begging for Him to take them, and then he had to apologize. 'Yes, it was time, and everything was ready, but now things have changed. I'm sorry.'

Which was, in His humble opinion, a perfectly good reason why not to frequent them, unless He absolute had too. Again with the salt in wounds, for Him and them. Some of them, eventually, stopped feeling betrayed. But some of them carried on a grudge against everything and nothing, and that was a sure way anyone, even He, could get complexes.

Witches and wizards, as a whole, tended to be Long-Lived, but it was more often than not the Long-Lived kind that simply forgot that they had to die rather than the 'I-Will-Conquer-The-Secret-Of Immortality' Long-Lived***. Few of them actually did it on purpose, and the ones who did, well. Just about everyone grew up to regret it (sooner or later), so He lived and let lived - metaphorically speaking, of course.

But again, with the exceptions, every once in a while there were some who became Long Lived due to carelessness or mistakes.

"Well," the witch said with a smile painted in red. She blew her smoke, crossed a leg and her kimono parted, revealing the white skin of her thigh. If he had hormones, a lymphatic system and veins, it might have done something to his (non-existent) insides. "It has been a while, hasn't it?"

FOR YOU, YES. THAT BOY OF YOURS, HOWEVER...

"He is getting better," a soft chide.

Death granted this, nodding. I SUPPOSE THAT'S RIGHT. BEFORE, I ENDED UP VISITING PRETTY MUCH DAILY. IT'S BEEN ABOUT THREE OR FOUR MONTHS SINCE I LAST SAW HIM.

She smiled with her closed eyes, and if it was any other witch, Death would perhaps add a 'demurely' to her expression, but on her, it only looked wicked.

SO... IT'S NOT JUST A SOCIAL GATHERING, RIGHT? though if it was a coven and Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg were coming, he was going to stay no matter what. Not so much out of fear that the witches might end up killing each other and he'd have to hurry back to collect them, but because Nanny Ogg and Yuuko would undoubtedly get drunk and sing the Hedgehog song together and Granny Weatherwax would look as if someone had squeezed several lemons inside her mouth.

But the witch just blew some more smoke from her pipe.

"It's time." She nodded her head towards him, though. "Or it will be soon. You'll know it sooner than I will, won't you?"

PERKS OF THE JOB, Death added with a shrug of his shoulders. YOU ARE TAKING IT QUITE GOOD, IF I MAY ADD. LAST TIME...

The thing about witches was that they don't like admitting someone defeated them. This was one of the reasons why most witches don't really have competitions, unlike wizards. Most witches are smart enough to now that a competition between witches would end up in blood and tears (none of it theirs, of course). Besides, most witches are conceited enough to believe that they are the most powerful witch without having to try and prove it to others.

But last time... she had been angry, at the beginning of her death. Furious. There was nothing she could bargain to stop her death, and that made her furious. Death had just seen the way she had screamed at the wizard, and at Him, when He started visiting and she was finally able to see Him as He was, that is, visiting to make her acquaintance, not about someone else.

But by the end she had been ready to go, and then the wizard made a careless mistake. No matter how powerful or how Long-Lived they might be, they're still humans, and humans make mistakes, and even though the wizard had been grieving for the witch, then both of them grieved as she remained.

"As I said, it's time," a shrug, and she took a drag of her smoke before she blew it away. "I think we have done everything we could. It's not our place to stay."

IT WON'T BE PRETTY, Death said. EITHER THAT OR WHAT WILL COME FOR YOU.

She just smiled again. Shadows were already creeping closer. They avoided him, but they started tangling around her legs, dark and terrible, this death she chose as a way to break a spell.

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," the witch said. She put her pipe down and she stood up, letting the drapes of her kimono cover her legs. She walked forward, towards the darkness. "Will you stay, no matter how long it takes?"

Death considered for a moment, before he nodded, shrugging again.

I HAVE TIME.

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* Almost everyone knows them as 'immortals'. Well, this is half a fallacy. There aren't as many immortals as everyone seems to believe. Most beings, if they are alive, will die sooner or later, and although most people die 'sooner', there are those who by will or mistake end up clinging to life a little too much and thus become a 'later' (the later can be a few centuries, a few millennium or in one special case, the end of everything that has existed). But that's okay. If there is something Death is, is that He is patient.

** Hades had been one of the human gods that Death had liked the most. Well organized, thoughtful, and most of the time quite reasonable. He had even forgiven the mess that had happened with the pomegranates. He had almost, almost considered offering him the chance to live for another millennium or two, but he knew that all in all, Hades was a family guy in the end. At least he had been okay with still helping a bit with the books during weekends.

*** As with anything else in the Multiverse, there are exceptions to this, of course. Loud, brash, could-destroy-the-Multiverse sized-exceptions. They tend to be the most fun to collect.


End file.
